Goethes Götz Von Berlichingen Mit Der Eisernen Hand Ein Schauspiel; Edited with Introduction, Notes, and Map (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Goethes Götz Von Berlichingen Mit Der Eisernen Hand: Ein Schauspiel; Edited With Introduction, Notes, and Map In the meantime economic changes had made the posi tion of this class relatively worse. The rapid growth and prosperity of the cities show that Germany had changed from a purely agricultural to a commercial nation. Wealth and luxury followed, making the well-to-do townsmen the pepper-sacks, as they were contemptuously called, the object of special envy and hatred to the knights, who saw their own financial condition growing worse with every generation. And if they sought to better this condi tion, as was doubtless frequently the case, by more oppres sive and exacting measures against their peasant tenantry, they found here a class, which the new military organiza tion had made conscious of its power and which was liable at any moment to spring into open revolt. Added to all this was the growing power of the princes, who were rounding out their territories, extending their jurisdiction over the estates of the knights, and thus rapidly becoming sovereigns over subjects who formerly like themselves owed allegiance only to the emperor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.